Posts Tagged “#40booksby40”

Behind the Scenes at the Museum, Kate Atkinson This is the thirteenth book chosen from my #40booksby40 list. I absolutely loved her later historical books Life After Life and its sort-of-sequel A God in Ruins, so I was curious to (…)

The Trial, Franz Kafka This is the twelfth book chosen from my #40booksby40 list. It’s the one which surprised me most so far. I guess, because I already knew the basic plot — Josef K. is charged with a crime (…)

The Siege, Helen Dunmore This is the eleventh book chosen from my #40booksby40 list. The question ‘The Siege’ asks is blunt and raw: what happens when you starve a city for 2½ years? Leningrad found out, from 1941 to 1944 (…)

Moon Tiger, Penelope Lively This is the tenth book chosen from my #40booksby40 list. It is — let me cut to the chase — superb. I have long loved Penelope Lively’s writing, and this was one of those rainy day (…)

The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters This is the ninth book plucked from my #40booksby40 list. I’ve read all Sarah Waters’ other novels, loved each of them in their different ways, but had put off The Little Stranger: ghost stories aren’t (…)

A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James This is the eight book plucked from my #40booksby40 list. And I’ll get straight to it: there are books I admire more than I enjoy, and this is definitely one of them. (…)

Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell This is the seventh book plucked from my #40booksby40 list. I have a bit of a love-hate thing for The Other Mr Blair. Animal Farm was one of my GCSE English Lit set texts (along (…)

The Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro This is the sixth novel plucked from my #40booksby40 list. And what I’m about to write pains me because Ishiguro is one of my favourite writers… but The Buried Giant is a crashing disappointment. I (…)

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson This is the fifth novel plucked from my #40booksby40 list. If you know it only as a “coming out novel” or, worse, “that lesbian book”, you are missing out, bigly. Jeanette Winterson’s (…)

Too Much Happiness, Alice Munro This is the fourth novel plucked from my #40booksby40 list. I’m going to start with the one negative: reading a collection of short stories one after the other isn’t (at least for me) a great (…)

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My naked run down Whitehall…

He promised on a past DP to run naked along Whitehall if Lib Dem numbers were slashed in the general election. We have reminded him of the pledge before, but did blogger Stephen Tall deliver? Here's his film on Wednesday's DP.